I've been travelling

July is holiday season and we've been travelling about the UK catching up with friends and family, rediscovering the huge variety of urban and rural landscapes in this country.

A couple of days ago we navigated the post-modern wilderness that is Milton Keynes, thankfully with the help of a satnav system. Like Canberra this city is encircled by concentric ring roads punctuated with identical roundabouts. Even the satnav was losing the will to live as she recited "At the roundabout go straight across, second exit" for the ninth time, though she did eventually direct us into a concrete shopping centre the size of a small European country. Yes, I hear your cries of "why ?" and "what were you thinking ?" so let me just say that this was part of a larger story arc concerning new school shoes. Let's not go there.

Beyond MK (going North) is that indistinct area of the country known as The Midlands. Lying somewhere between The North and The South it includes Leicester, where old friends now live and whom we visited overnight and caught up on five years. A fine time.

The drive north cut through Shropshire, the homeland of the speed camera, which seems to be suffering in the recession. Most of the towns and villages we passed through had boarded up pubs, shops or industrial sites with weed-strewn car parks barricaded with concrete blocks. Even wealthy Macclesfield has empty shops, gaps sites and endless sales.

On the upside were two relaxed and pleasant days in London enjoying the Science Museum, a photographic exhibition, The Globe Theatre (we sat in on a rehearsal) and a stroll down the South Bank amidst street performers and living statues. London has an amplified familiarity because of its ubiquity in BBC dramas like Spooks and I thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering its vitality and rich sense of history.

Before this trip I completed the first of two planned drama schools at the local theatre. A group of ten children learned and performed Joe of Arabia, which I'd rewritten for the week. It worked out well and there was favourable comment from the audience of parents and friends. While easy to please at one level I always look for the next level of surprise at the accomplishment of the kids after only a week, as well as enjoyment of the dialogue at an adult level. My spies in the audience reported both reactions, so I was pleased with it.

Next week sees the second of these events; a video, sound and lighting course with a sci-fi theme. Could be fun.

Rites of passage

Another day, another rite of passage. Simon and three friends all left Primary school yesterday, the entire year group surrounded by a crowd of (mostly) mothers taking photos. They had adorned their T-shirts and faces with felt pen signatures and messages, a strange looking crew of almost-adolescents ritually painted for their journey.

The mixed emotions arising from leaving their educational cradles and starting seven long weeks of summer holiday manifested mostly in wild whoops, play-fights, fierce group hugs for the cameras, sudden departures when they'd had enough or glimpsed the edge.

The boy plus his three friends became the Four Chefs for the evening, having spent the past few days gathering at different houses and cooking together. Four families met at the first house for dips and drinks, processed to our house for tacos, fajitas, chilli mince and vegetarian fillings, various sour cream dishes, champagne and other drinks. Carrying our drinks through the twilight and down the hill we enjoyed creme brulee, crusted with a blowtorch, together with more drinks and a dessert wine. At the final destination at the bottom of the hill Simon had set up his chocolate fountain (seriously) and happy kids dipped chopped fruit in hot chocolate while the adults had coffee, chocolates, fruit and ..er.. drinks.

It was a grand evening, a rite of passage for parents watching our children shaking off a few more clouds of glory and taking tentative steps on the damp earth.

consulting on the latest plan

Here's our latest plan for a house on our little plot. It's based on a 7.2m square tower, with extensions to the side (for the stairs) and to the back to catch the sun and accommodate the open living area. The stairs are wrapped around the edge because with three floors they have to be isolated with fire doors.

The plan is done on a site called Floorplanner and you can view the plans there at this link:
http://www.floorplanner.com/projects/18527665-ed-road-plan

The embedded plan below only seems to show two of the floors, but if you're serious do go and look at the full plan on the site. The 3D view is pretty cool.

This one's out for consultation, so all contributions are welcome ! Click on the comments link below.

A life in pictures

This week a friend passed on to me a collection of several hundred slides taken by a distant uncle of his over forty-odd years. When the man died his slides and old camera gear ended up in my friend's attic, emerging this week as bin-fodder and intercepted by me.

The slides, mostly taken in Edinburgh, divide into distinct categories. Many are up-close images of flowers, leaves, and a few of trees, clouds etc, all taken in the Botanical Gardens. There's a collection of monochromes of pavements, snow, shadows and various textured surfaces, and the other set is of dressed mannequins in fashionable shop windows on Princes Street.

This last set is what caught my eye; striking and complex images involving the dressed models, the lettering on the window's surface, the reflections in the shop window of Edinburgh Castle and of people passing by. He used high quality lenses so the light and the depth of field is superb, the models are shot to seem animated or engaged in conversation with each other. The reflections show the different layers existing simultaneously, overlaid on to a single static image. The older ones depict 1950s fashions, green Edinburgh omnibuses, people in hats and overcoats.

Looking through them on an old slide projector I tried to picture this man, this distant uncle seeing the finished picture in his head, finding the right angles and setting up all the manual controls of his Contax camera. What was he seeing in these images, what were they for ?

I read an article this week titled 'Don't Die With Your Music Still In You' and I've been thinking about how creativity flows through us. I wonder what he did with his slides, beyond selecting and arranging them in carousels, storing them meticulously in archive boxes. I felt privileged to have seen something of his creativity.

Just because I can

Now you can see how many people have visited my blog (about 6) and where they are (can you guess ?). And you can see where most of the photos were taken, on a handy map. Just click on the photos to go to the online album.

Then again, why would you ?

Oh hear that ol' piano

Not many men could carry off a rumpled white suit (might even have been off-white) and badly balanced red tie but somehow Garrison Keillor seems to find the words and mannerisms to make it work. He roams about the stage set of A Prairie Home Companion talking and singing effortlessly and apparently off-the-cuff (though sections of the script were constantly being carried on and off the stage by a man dressed in black, and sometimes handed to Keillor seconds before he read aloud from them.) It all shambled along like a a Dickensian banking office; people wandering in and out of the room carrying pieces of paper and looking vague, one hand running across the forehead, and Garrison Keillor conducting the whole show with a distracted air, like a man just doing his job. Which I guess he is. Of course under the water the feet are paddling furiously, and that's what I loved about it. It was flawless, sparkling and unpredictable without raising a sweat, indeed nothing more than a bushy eyebrow.
We got a mention, which was nice, sitting in our seats high in the second balcony; the only ones left when I got out of bed at six in the morning several months ago to book them online at the moment they went on sale. It was a special night, the first new show of the season so the live broadcast was followed by the annual street dance and meatloaf supper on Exchange Street in St Paul. I'd managed to keep that part of it secret from Carole and the kids, so it felt like a bonus and, for me, worth the flight to get there.
We stayed in a lovely (budget) hotel which used to be a railway station, and we ate our breakfast yesterday sitting on the old station platform. No such luck this morning as our shuttle driver arrived at 5.55am to take us to the airport. Breakfast in Chicago and lunch at Niagara Falls, but that's another story...

Yosemite

Superlatives become commonplace after a while when travelling through this landscape. I did my best to see the place through Ansell Adams' eyes, helped by a local gallery of his pictures and the ubiquitous opportunity to buy associated gifts, but the scale and grandeur of the valley defied my camera. We just ooh-ed and ahh-ed along with all the other tourists.

Our night in a log (well, wooden anyway) cabin at Curry Village in Yosemite Park helped us appreciate the budget Best Western hotels we've generally been using along the way, though it was a treat to meet Ed, the golf-cart driving porter who helped us carry ALL our luggage from the car to the shed - er - cabin. We've cunningly arranged the luggage so only the overnight and valuable stuff needs to leave the car each day, but we hadn't counted on the Yosemite bears. Apparently they break into cars looking for food if so much as a handbag is left inside, so along came Ed to transport our pile of bags. He chatted away about the park, the bears, life in general and helped us feel at home.

We didn't see a bear and, despite my cruising the carpark this morning with my camera, I didn't see any cars broken into. We did see a squirrel.

Today we saw the biggest living things on Earth; giant sequoia trees. A magical afternoon walking in nature scented with wood smoke and pine, a lingering memory of sun rays slanting through the drifting smoke. The gift shop was closed; a sort of gift in itself. Speaking of records, we went from sea level to 9500 feet and back to 3000 feet over the course of yesterday, an ear-popping experience.

Tonight we are in small town America. Went to a local pizza place where I felt somewhat out of place. Sports memorabilia and insignia all over the walls, three giant screens showing three different sports channels, lots of baseball caps and beer bellies, surly service. Great pizza. Local Republican HQ prominently evident across the street. Is it just me ? After all, we're not from around here...

Lots of great chats with the kids about travelling, family, learning and education, feelings, communication, loyalty, experiences. We're learning a lot about each other.

I've been through the desert with a GPS called Sally

Garrison Keillor (about whom more later) does a great send-up of these devices. It takes him on unwanted detours, argues with him and willfully misinterprets his instructions, but is infinitely patient and forgiving, faithfully taking him (eventually) to his stated destination. We've named ours Sally, and I never want to be without her again when I'm driving. We tell her where we're going and she gives step-by-step instructions to turn left or right on to this that or the other road, anticipating lane-shifts and monitoring traffic flows, giving progress reports and even devising routes that involve as few left turns (think about it) as possible. Amazing. When I divert off her chosen route (as is my habit in life) she pauses just long enough for effect, then says 'Recalculating' with a weary sigh. She tirelessly recalculates, devising ingenious ways to get me back on track whilst giving the impression that my mistaken turnoff was, after all, the best route to our destination. A true friend.